Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the Judicial Year at the Ajuda Palace in Lisbon, Luís Neves said that the PJ has been investigating this crime "very few days ago".

The director assured that "the PJ is strongly committed to discover the perpetrators of the aggressions".

21-year-old Giovani Rodrigues died on 31 December at the Santo António Hospital in Porto, where he was transferred from Bragança, where at dawn on 21 December he was found lying on the street after a feud in a bar involving a friend from the group he went out with that night.

The newspaper Público reveals that the PJ points to “a futile motive” and rejects the thesis of racial hatred associated with the death of the Cape Verdean student, particularly in social networks.

It also indicates that "the autopsy was inconclusive, not clear whether the death was caused by aggression or the fall" on the street, where the young man was found unconcious.

The case reached the Bragança authorities as a possible drunk fallen on the street without mention of aggression or injury, as Bragança's second fire chief Carlos Martins told Lusa.

Only after arriving at the scene and assessing the victim did the emergency team discover a head injury and "found that it was a possible head injury," he said.

According to the official, the possibility of the injury resulting from aggression was raised after the victim was taken to Bragança hospital and transferred to another hospital unit in Porto, where he died at dawn on 31 December.

The firefighters were alerted by the CODU (Urgent Patients Orientation Centre), via 112, and the first entity to arrive at the scene was the PSP of Bragança, with whom Lusa tried to speak, to no avail so far.

The firefighters are unaware of who made the call and whether the young Cape Verdean was alone when he was found lying down, only confirming that he was the only victim they evaluated and transported to the hospital.

The warning reached firefighters around 4am on 21 December as "intoxication," the technical emergency medical classification for cases that may involve various situations, including substances ranging from poisons to narcotics or alcohol.

The young man was laying on Avenida Sá Carneiro, next to a shop (W52), more than half a kilometre and a few minutes walk from the Lagoa Azul bar, where he would have been with a group of friends and where a quarrel started as the origin of aggression.

The Lagoa Azul bar published a clarification on social networks confirming that at dawn on 21 December, "for unknown reasons, two customers were involved in clashes at the bar."

“None of those involved in this confrontation was Luis Giovani Rodrigues,” they say, mourning the young man's death. It was later learned that one of those involved was part of the group with whom the Cape Verdean student had left.

A cousin of the victim told the newspaper “Contacto” that the quarrel had started because one of Luis Giovani's friends had touched a girl and her boyfriend didn't like it.

According to him, when Giovani's group left the bar, they were awaited by several people "with belts, sticks and irons" that would have attacked the person involved in the quarrel with the girl.

The same report indicates that Giovani had intervened to stop the feud and was hit with a "bump in the head", which would have caused the group to disperse.

It remains unclear what happened between the bar and the place where the young man was found lifeless on the street.